Ouroboros...

This is a post about how our lives change during the course of school and college days and is dedicated to all Indian students who have gone through the same.

Until 10th, I enjoyed a cool and collected nature. I could study when I wanted and it was no big deal. Enter 10th. 10th year is board year. And we were forced to study endlessly for hours on end and finally the board exams came and went. and it seriously was a piece of cake. And to think what our teachers said about it. They said it would guide our destinies. Seriously nearly 4 years after it, I have no idea how it did, or if it ever did.

Enter 11th and 12th. 12th is once again board year. But that was not so much of a cause of concern for me. Because once you write your 10th board, you begin to realize that all of this fear that the teachers have instilled in you is just a way to make sure you get good marks and enhance the school's reputation. In reality, it is just an exam like the many that came before it. If you prepare well, you will reap its benefits.

But my real cause of concern was the entrance exams which decide which professional course I could get into.  I had ditched medicine already and so I just had to focus on engineering. Here comes entrance coaching. Every Sunday I had to endure about 6 hours of class. And back then, Sunday was the only holiday I actually got. I was forced to mug up a lot of facts and was asked to speed up my calculations. I never really focused on IIT or NIT for that matter and consequently when I gave the tests, I flunked big time. But I got in on my state entrance.

I have been studying in my college for 2 years and have 2 more years to go, but this is where something else comes in.This is where its deja-vu all over again. Once I pass out, I have a couple of options – either take a job as a software engineer, go for M Tech or MBA, and plus I can do this out of the country. I don’t seem to have an affinity for the always-on-the-edge, hectic and tense schedule that governs a software engineer’s life, and I am no good at management. So the option left it to do my M Tech either here or out of the country. I used to love the fact that I could travel out of the country, but now that I think about it, I am not so sure. Another country means another culture, another set of rules ans a complete transformation. And I am not so sure if that is what I want. I think I’ll be comfortable right here in my own country.

But that requires me to give another entrance exam, and that means it is that time again…entrance coaching. Sundays are going down the drain again. And this just about ruins my bimonthly plans of heading home and relaxing. So a part of me feels reluctant and uncertain about taking the step. But this is the cowardly part of me, this is the part of me that likes comfort. There is another part of me, the competitive side, that is ready to go. Ready to go and extract revenge for the humiliating defeat I endured two years ago. So as usual, I am torn into two pieces with no hope of co-existing. One part has to be crushed down. Or better still one part must endorse the intentions of the other for the greater good.

And it had better be the comfort loving me who gives in.

One week to decide and make up my mind.

But this really brings forth the lies and chaos that we are born into. My parents told me, it would all be easy after 10th. After that they said it’d be better after 12th and you get into a good college. After that they said it would be better after college. And we are again in the same endless loop.

Life is never ending. And along the way, we have to make sacrifices. But don’t ever think that life is divided into semesters and you get holidays. The pressures of life never stop. There is only one way to get away from this. Enjoy everything you do. 

But that is easier said than done.

( FYI: an ouroboros is a picture of a snake devouring it own head and it a mystical symbol of continuity)

Marooned...

No, I was not drenched in a coat of maroon paint, if that’s what you are thinking. I am referring to the other meaning of marooned. The dictionary provides this definition:

ma·roon 

tr.v. ma·rooned, ma·roon·ing, ma·roons

1. To put ashore on a deserted island or coast and intentionally abandon.

2. To abandon or isolate with little hope of ready rescue or escape: The travelers were marooned by the blizzard.

n.

1. often Maroon

a. A fugitive Black slave in the West Indies in the 17th and 18th centuries.

b. A descendant of such a slave.

2. A person who is marooned, as on an island.

It has been a long time since I posted. It was partly because of a lack of inspiration and partly because of  certain technical problems. My modem just quit working. I had to wait an entire week to replace it, and in that time, I was effectively marooned.

But this leads us to think about one of the most ubiquitous things in our life. Something which has become  such an important part of our life, that we fail to see its influence in our lives. Just like we don’t know the value of water till the well has gone dry, we don’t see the value of the internet till you are effectively taken off of the web. I was, and I realized how much I relied on the web. We had a function at our college during that time, and I was supposed to design the powerpoint presentation, and boom! I no longer had access to pictures, or information to do that. I wanted to check my mail for the info the others had shared with me. But hey….you need a net connection for that. So stupid of me. To check out a video on youtube, or for that matter google the results of an important wrestling PPV, apparently both google and youtube are on the web as well, silly me.

I was cut off from most of my life. This has taught me a very important lesson in life. You don’t value the things you take for granted. You only realize their value, and what they meant to you when you lose them. In my case, it was a simple case to restore, but it need not always be so.